Star Wars: The Old Republic will kill WoW - outsourced to Broadsword

[rusty_shackleford]

I really dislike all of the imperial agent companions so far.
Kaliya is worthless storywise, she's too unpredictable(and I hate her personality.) The idea that an intelligence agency would even want her is ridiculous.

Kaliyo gets a lot of hate, but I think that was the point of her character. She is supposed to be such an uncontrolable loose cannon, as a counterpart to the orderly agent. Most players made the mistake of thinking "If the companion disapproves I am playing it wrong", then complained that Kaliyo would force players to be evil massmurderers making no sense. No, you do not need her approval. Kaliyo is easily impressed by shiny presents anyway.
Just wait till you play her quests. Each of them pretty much ends with you saying "Kaliyo! WTF were you thinking?".

But that's why I like her. She's not written as a loveable waifu. But she is just using you. You are just her ride and a fancy connection, she can use to make money. She's gone the moment something better comes along. Or is she?


If you want the full weirdness package, roll a female agent and romance Vector AKA Bugboy. I dare you.


FYI: keep the outfits you get as quest rewards if you like the look. They are often skin/color combinations you cannot reproduce anymore. Thanks to level scaling you can't come back to a planet and just kill mobs until they drop a low level item anymore. My agent is still weaing the Hammerpants Hammer station outfit, which you also cannot get anymore. Please buy cartel outfits, love, Bioware.

The problem is that she doesn't fit.
She's a loose cannon and at best an unstable murderer for hire. There's zero reason an intelligence agency would ever use her for anything sans a one-off contract through a proxy. She's a political nightmare waiting to happen. And they absolutely would never stick her in a tiny ship with one of their own agents.

I don't want any of these people on my ship. It's not that I want companions that are yes-men, they are just untrustworthy individuals.

 

[Bliblablubb]

I don't want any of these people on my ship.

A lot of companions fall into that category. That's the problem when you HAVE to squeeze in 5 companions per class to cover all roles. Half of them are "just there". Consular is the worst, why did I even drag one of those idiots around? Stop talking about the great scorekeeper lizardman!

Booty hunter, warrior and inqui are pretty good tho.

 

[Storyfag]

Stop talking about the great scorekeeper lizardman!

Hey, I liked that part. About the only likeable companion for the Consular.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Consular is the worst, why did I even drag one of those idiots around? Stop talking about the great scorekeeper lizardman!

Qyzen is great though.
It's obvious the story is meant to be played lightsided ergo Qyzen makes for an interesting companion for the consular.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Hey, I liked that part. About the only likeable companion for the Consular.

Well the bar is not really high.
He was interesting in the beginning, but the whole scorekeeper thing became pretty annoying 1-track-mind soon. More of a wasted chance than a bad idea. Similar to the smuggler's wookie. "Oh look he has new dialog!" "Blablabla honor, blablabla you are strong". Afterwards you just shrug and move on, having learned nothing new about him. Sad.
Having the wise old hunter mentor with was a pretty nice idea.

It's obvious the story is meant to be played lightsided ergo

Consular light hearted? "Garbled mess" is what usually comes in mind with that storyline. But no, hunting a sith who mindcontrols jedis into genociding, jedi who you are supposed to heal but just can go "nah, you killed so many, you are beyond redemption" is definitely not light hearted.
It does come over as unintentionally funny at times. Sad.
Consular is the char I used my outlander token on, because there was no way I would ever drag myself through the story. Again.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

EA put up a bunch of job openings for working on SWTOR recently, most of them art related or game design.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Seems that Rise of the Hutt Cartel is now F2P too since I haven't bought it and my Sith Sorceress could both enter that planet and levelled to 51.

If anyone of you guys is a subscriber, please buy an Artifact Equipment License for me and put it up for sale at the GTN for peanuts.

 

[Rahdulan]

If anyone of you guys is a subscriber, please buy an Artifact Equipment License for me and put it up for sale at the GTN for peanuts.

It sucks F2P can't use the highest tier of equipment, but honestly how badly do you even need it if you're not into the game enough to pay for it? I mean, you can't even do Ops as F2P, right? You can't even buy the passes anymore as subscribing is the only way to access end game PvE content.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

let me turn the question the other way: why would you even pay for a warcraft, let alone a reskin of it?

 

[Bliblablubb]

Seems that Rise of the Hutt Cartel is now F2P too

Hutt Cartel AND Shadow of Revan. I think lvl 60 is the cap for filthy casual f2p players now. Don't forget to play the prelude to Revan before starting that. It introduces Lana and Theron who will be the main sidekicks for everything after that (KOTFE/KOTET). Especially Lana, Bioware's writers love her. She gets a better model later tho, don't worry.
I remember a lot of people were pissed how they portray Revan there, but since I didn't read any outside material, I didn't get triggered. Rise of the Hutt Cartel was kinda meh for me, but the Revan expansion I liked.

Codexia ran around with that pirate hat for years (because filthy f2p players cannot hide the head slot). Arrrrrr.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

let me turn the question the other way: why would you even pay for a warcraft, let alone a reskin of it?

Because the stories are pretty good(overall story, plus eight individual career stories) and I'm willing to shell out $15 to get access to all of the expansion packs.
Just spent a solid 10 minutes debating whether I should save or kill an enemy spymaster at the end of a long quest chain.

SWTOR quests are nothing like WoW quests. It's a full-blown bioware-tier RPG. Whether that appeals to you, well…

 

[Bliblablubb]

Just spent a solid 10 minutes debating whether I should save or kill an enemy spymaster at the end of a long quest chain.

Did you manage to talk you-know-who

Spoiler

Darth Jadus, 2nd bestest Sith character in the game. After Darth "Bro" Marr

into giving up, bypassing the bossfight? AFAIK it's the only time you actually can do that by picking the correct dialog lines in the whole game. Made me feel so smug when I found it out on my 2nd agent.

please buy an Artifact Equipment License for me and put it up for sale at the GTN for peanuts.

Did what you asked and sold it for 50 credits. Whoever bought is happy now. Not sure how that helped you tho...

Spoiler

What would you even need that for? Everything is level scaled now, my smuggler already got lvl60 "outlander" stuff on Rishi, totally outclassing every quest reward. Or you can just watch your companion shred through everything, while you dance (which is how i played flashpoints, because... effort).
You would only need top tier gear for ops or pvp, which you can't do as a filthy casual anyway.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

What would you even need that for? Everything is level scaled now, my smuggler already got lvl60 "outlander" stuff on Rishi, totally outclassing every quest reward. Or you can just watch your companion shred through everything, while you dance (which is how i played flashpoints, because... effort).
You would only need top tier gear for ops or pvp, which you can't do as a filthy casual anyway.

Not all stats are scaled. Secondary stats like crit and alacrity aren't. It's a very strange system tbh.
Also, I believe by having an artifact weapon his overall damage would be higher even with scaling.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Ah, I was just feeling annoyed that I had purple gear in my bags but couldn't wear it. It's true that it's not like I need it for anything - I can't remember what the spell rotation for my Sith Sorcerer was but just randomly mashing buttons kills everything anyway, including Heroic 2+ content so I guess I'll sell them.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I really dislike all of the imperial agent companions so far.
Kaliya is worthless storywise, she's too unpredictable(and I hate her personality.) The idea that an intelligence agency would even want her is ridiculous.
I'd never have let Vector on my ship for obvious reasons. Not a chance.
Ditto with Lokin.

All three of them are massive risks when the entire point of being an agent is minimizing risks. The only companion that I'd actually trust is my damn ship's butler droid. And on second thought, that droid was provided by the agency itself so yeah…

IMO: Lokin would have been a fine character without his TWEEST. It didn't really add anything(I'm sure it will probably come into play eventually…)

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Also, the male agent's VA is perfect for the role. Whoever cast him for it did a really good job.

 

[Storyfag]

Also, the male agent's VA is perfect for the role. Whoever cast him for it did a really good job.

Overall the voice acting is pretty good. The Agent is perfect, as is the Inquisitor. The Warrior is very good, and the same goes for the Hunter. I don't have a solid recollection of the Rep side.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Starting to feel bad for Vector as I progress his quest.

 

[Storyfag]

Starting to feel bad for Vector as I progress his quest.

He got the short end of the stick, yeah. Mind-controlled by bugs... ugh.

 

[Rahdulan]

Stahp, stahp. You're making me want to reinstall this thing.

 

[Bliblablubb]

Also, the male agent's VA is perfect for the role. Whoever cast him for it did a really good job.

Overall the voice acting is pretty good. The Agent is perfect, as is the Inquisitor. The Warrior is very good, and the same goes for the Hunter. I don't have a solid recollection of the Rep side.

I love my female Agent, she later did Ciri in Witcher 3. The only female char in my original lineup, because I really liked her voice in Dwagon Age 2. Which is also the only thing I wanted to remember from that game...

Male Jedi Knight is Snake. Snaaaaaaaaaaaake. Huh. May the nanomachines midichlorians be with you.
Male Trooper is Varric from Dragon Age, or that guy from Starcraft 2. Female is Commander Shepard, extra funny when she talks with Satele Shan, who she also voices. Never liked trooper.
Male Smuggler was a little bland, fem is Kath Soucie. Preferred her.
Consular was pretty disappointing tbh. They probably told them to be extra calm and serene or smth. Not Nolan North's best work. I later saw the female actor in "The Expanse" (she is Miller's former partner/friend). Would not have recognized her voice. Sad.

Generally Bioware payed the big bucks for top tier VAs and it shows.

Inquisitor gets a speshul mention, since both excel at different approaches: the male one works best as a calm and methodical schemer, while the female is just adorable crazy.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Starting to feel bad for Vector as I progress his quest.

He got the short end of the stick, yeah. Mind-controlled by bugs... ugh.

It's implied he joined willingly.
And you can hardly blame the Killik for their behavior on Alderaan: that's their home, the other species are the invaders who are trying to genocide them.
We believe the Killik seek only peace.

 

[Rahdulan]

Male Trooper is Varric from Dragon Age, or that guy from Starcraft 2. Female is Commander Shepard, extra funny when she talks with Satele Shan, who she also voices. Never liked trooper.

Thing I liked about Trooper is it's basically Mass Effect 2 aka you are purposefully going out to recruit people and rebuild Havoc squad. That makes more sense to me than randomly picking up people who tag along with you. Never get far enough with Bounty Hunter to compare it to Trooper story-wise, though.

 

[Bliblablubb]

It's implied he joined willingly.

Oh he did join willingly. He is a loyal servant of THE_EMPIRE, and in his function as a member of the diplomatic corpse thought the best way of communicating with them was to join them and make them see the glory of the empiuh! Then turn them as weapons against your enemies.
Don't know how you ended Alderaan, but if you do not allow them to rape and pillage expand the hivemind by nesting in the castle and eat all humans, they will attack you. And Vector is all "meh, FOR THE EMPIUH!" and squishes those bugs.

But serious, look up the Vector romance on youtube if you dare. It's so weird and... different.
I like him as a character, it's a really interesting idea. But that romance still haunts me in my sleep.

Thing I liked about Trooper is it's basically Mass Effect 2 aka you are purposefully going out to recruit people and rebuild Havoc squad. That makes more sense to me than randomly picking up people who tag along with you. Never get far enough with Bounty Hunter to compare it to Trooper story-wise, though.

As I said, I never liked trooper. Went through it only to complete the whole set of stories. LS is one long sentence of "Yes sir! Hurrah! For the republic!" played straight, perfect for all those cock of duty fanbois. Should have of played DS instead. Forgettable companions. Except Forex. Love that propaganda bot.
Help civilians? "Good job, they are freedom loving patriots!" (Forex greatly approves)
Kill those civilians? "Good job, they could have been terrorists trying to destory our freedom!" (Forex greatly approves)


Booty hunter was the opposite. I expected nothing and had a lot of fun, mostly because of his companions. They felt like friends, or even family. Except Skadge. Nobody likes Skadge. The first (or second if they come soon) companion is usually the one you spend the most time with. And Mako was a sidekick/little sister right from the start, and other than Vette never annoying.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Yeah, I got the Alderaan ending with him fighting the Killiks. He struggles to refer to himself as "I" instead of "We" when he acts against the hivemind. I'm pretty torn on Vector, his morality is just too shifted for me to ever trust him, but he seems loyal to a fault. He's such an odd character. Don't get me wrong: It's not because I hate the character itself, it's probably because the character is so darn well designed/written. Probably one of the most interesting characters in any modern RPG I've played.
Somehow SWTOR ended up having some of the best writing of any modern Bioware game.